How can one distinguish between an tribulation as a grant for elevating one's rank, and a tribulation as a wrath and punishment from Allah? And how does a person know the nature of the affliction that has befallen him? And are the natural disasters that strike the Ummah a wrath from Allah?

Allah afflicts whom He wills for multiple reasons, including expiating sins, elevating ranks, and distinguishing believers. A Muslim must discern the types of calamities and their causes. The pious predecessors linked their sins to tribulation, but the abundance of sins in the current era has led to an inability to distinguish the types of afflictions and their causes. As for the calamities befalling the Ummah, their cause is the emergence of abominations, the spread of usury, and governance by other than what Allah has revealed.